


Beyond the Sea

by track_04



Category: Kraken - China Mieville
Genre: Afterlife, Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pseudo-Timeloop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/pseuds/track_04
Summary: "Fancy meeting you here," Billy said, and immediately regretted it.It got Dane to look at him finally, his expression that familiar mixture of awe and confusion and mild annoyance that usually meant Billy had said or done something strange. "I work here."Billy smiled. "I know, mate. You're hard to miss."Billy and Dane and a trip through the afterlife.
Relationships: Billy Harrow/Dane Parnell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Beyond the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freudiancascade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudiancascade/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!

The last thing Billy Harrow smelled was the sea, salty and dying in the house where he had, for a brief time, thought he'd managed to save the world. The last thing he saw was the others seeing him off, the four of them lined up and watching him, knowing that the person who ended up at the Darwin wouldn't be the same one that was leaving them. The last thing he thought about was Dane, smiling at some long-forgotten joke, looking alive and happy and beautiful. 

He wished Dane was there to see him off, standing beside the others in the emptied out embassy of the sea, surrounded by muddy water and the echoes of Grisamentum's dying magic. He wondered if Dane would think he was being brave or just stupid to be doing this. If he'd insist on coming with him.

He was still thinking of Dane when Simon started working his magic. Billy felt it filling him up, and remembered Dane's smile, and then there was nothing.

And not just any nothing, but a nothing that was completely unfamiliar, unlike anything that Billy associated with that word. There was no emptiness, no great void waiting to be filled. There wasn't a lack of anything, really. It was more like a pause, a drawn out blink between There and Not There, in which Billy was both aware and unaware that he wasn't. 

It was like falling into water, spinning round and round as you sank, pulled in all directions at once and unsure if you'd ever know which way was up again. It was cold, the weight of unseen water pressing in around him, forcing him deeper. Billy reached out, trying to grab onto something, and felt the brush of wet, rubbery flesh against his fingertips.

He jerked his hand back to himself and spun around, opened eyes that he knew he shouldn't have had to search for it, hoping to catch a glimpse of shadowy, liquid movement. Instead, the world was suddenly right there in front of him, just as bright and real as he remembered.

\--

Billy was walking down a familiar hall beneath the Darwin, dressed in his usual non-uniform of t-shirt and jeans, his name tag and ID hung round his neck. He knew that he was in the middle of leading a tour from the way he was holding his head, tilted just slightly to one side to give the impression that he was interested in whatever the people who'd paid to be here might have to say.

"Dane?" he said the first thing that came to mind, turning his head to check behind him and half-expecting him to be there, looking patient and vaguely grumpy as he told him about the newest way they were expected to save the world. 

Instead, a man who wasn't Dane blinked at him, smiling an uncomfortably polite smile as he stumbled to a stop behind him. He had a little boy in his arms--his son, Billy remembered. The little boy would start crying in a few minutes, when they made it through the last few doors and discovered that the squid had been stolen and the thing he'd come here to see was gone. 

"I'm sorry, my name's not Dane."

"You--" Billy stared past the man and his son, at the girl and her boyfriend, at the cultist in the suit with his a delicate metal rendering of his god pinned to his lapel. The cultists stared back at him, face guarded. 

The specimens lined up on the shelved behind them started to dance in their containers, a delicate pirouette that made the cloudy liquid around them rock slowly from side to side. Billy thought he caught a whiff of the far-off smell of the sea.

The man leaned forward into Billy's line of sight, blocking his view of the rest of the room. "Are you okay?"

"Fine. It's fine. Sorry." Billy shook his head, turning away from them to open a door that he remembered passing through a few hundred times, all of them routine and rather forgettable; except, of course, for this one. This was the one that changed everything.

On the other side of it stood Dane, dressed in his security uniform, looking tall and stoic and untouchable. Looking alive. He didn't greet Billy, didn't even look him in the eye, but he nodded to the cultist standing behind him. Just like he had the first time this had happened.

Billy stopped in his tracks, ignoring the indignant sounds of the tour group doing their best not to bump into him, and stared at him. "Dane."

Dane's face remained still, shoulders rigid and eyes unblinking, but Billy could see something beneath the surface of his skin. A glimmer of recognition.

"Fancy meeting you here," Billy said, and immediately regretted it. 

It got Dane to look at him finally, his expression that familiar mixture of awe and confusion and mild annoyance that usually meant Billy had said or done something strange. "I work here."

Billy smiled. "I know, mate. You're hard to miss."

In the room behind them, the specimens continued to dance in their containers, the quiet tinkling of their appendages against the glass like the steady beating of a heart. Billy stepped forward, and the smell of salt in the air grew stronger. "Do you want to go for a drink?"

"A drink?" 

"Yeah. I don't feel like being at work anymore," he said, ignoring the startled protests of the tour group behind him.

Dane smiled back at him, tentative and confused. He smiled like he knew and understood Billy and his strangeness, maybe even enjoyed it. He opened his mouth to answer, but before he managed to get the word out, Billy blinked, and the world blinked around him, sending him spiralling downward, back into darkness.

\--

Billy opened his eyes and he was on a bus, returning home after an altogether bewildering visit to the police station. The city around him wasn't talking about the squid that had been stolen from the Darwin; they weren't wondering, like Billy was, how in the hell that even happened, or reading any of the pithy quotes that he and his co-workers hadn't been allowed to give reporters after its disappearance.

A couple boarded the bus, a man and a woman that he didn't know, but whose faces he recognized from the first time he'd been here. He sat up a bit straighter in his seat and turned, looking for the man in a hoodie that he knew would be seated at the back of the bus. He was slouched in his seat, hands shoved in his pockets and face turned away, hidden, looking big as ever. Billy wondered how he hadn't immediately realized he was there the first time; he was rubbish at hiding, too broad and obvious and _Dane_ to be easily missed.

"Dane," he said and it came out muffled, the air thick and salty against his tongue. He tried again, louder this time, and felt the seat beneath him start to drift. 

Dane stayed hunched over, face turned away.

"Oh, sod it," Billy said to himself and stood, making his way to the back of the bus. His feet left dents in the metal flooring, soft pits like wet sand. He stopped in front of Dane, ignoring the feel of the metal sneaking its way up through the soles of his shoes, sticking between his toes. "Dane."

Dane looked up at him finally, the flash of recognition clear even with his hood pulled up and part of his face hidden.

Billy tried to think of something witty to say. The best he could come up with was, "I know it's you."

Dane nodded at him slowly, forgetting to be stealthy or cautious or anything but faintly amused. "Yeah, mate. You said my name."

"...yeah, I did. Good catch. For you, not me." Billy took off his glasses to polish them on his shirt. He put them back on and pushed the hair out of his eyes, then decided to try again. "Is this seat taken?"

Dane looked at the empty seat beside him, then back at Billy. "Doesn't seem to be."

"Brilliant."

Dane moved his legs just enough for Billy to squeeze past him, still looking slightly bewildered by the entire situation. Billy grinned and sat down beside him. 

He took a deep breath, gearing up to say something reasonably witty this time. And then, he blinked.

\--

Billy was in Dane's church, staring past the pews at the pulpit and the many-armed rendition of the Kraken hovering above it, stylized and efficiently beautiful. Its limbs rippled as he watched it, pulling away from the wall with a metal groan and drifting through the air with no real purpose, moved by imaginary currents.

Billy heard the rush of the incoming tide in his ears as he turned away from it, looking behind him until he found Dane; he was seated in one of the pews just to Billy's right, sturdy and silent and patient. He looked, as always, like someone who expected, or maybe hoped, not to be noticed. 

Somewhere off to the left, the Teuthex was saying something about Braque and asking Billy about his dreams. He ignored him, wading forward through the seawater lapping at his ankles, and took a seat on an empty bit of pew beside Dane.

"I take it this seat is still free," Billy said, sliding closer.

"Yes." Dane shifted, glancing over Billy's shoulder in the direction of the Teuthex's voice, still droning on about dreams and destiny and great big, bloody squids. When he looked back at Billy, his expression was knowing and a little sad. "You dead?"

"Yeah, same as you." Billy shrugged, smiling awkwardly, catching glimpses of the liquid metallic movements of the god above the pulpit out of the corner of his eye. "But I reckon we saved the world."

"I thought you might," Dane said, staring down at the rising water, now nearly up to their knees. "But I hoped you wouldn't."

"What, save the world?"

"Die." Dane didn't quite smile. "I expected you'd save the world, if I didn't mange it first."

"You helped a bit." Billy leaned over, knocking their shoulders together. Dane didn't move, and the Kraken swayed above them. Billy's jeans were wet and heavy against his legs. "I was kind of hoping you'd skip the dying part, too."

Dane leaned into him, warm and solid and feeling, for the moment, alive. Billy leaned back into him, ignoring the Teuthex and the Kraken and all the heaviness behind his eyelids for as long as he could. He turned his head, taking one last look at Dane before the urge to close his eyes grew too strong to resist.

\--

Billy was in a safe house with Dane. They were both lying on the floor talking about saints called Argonauts and all the things that Dane's grandfather had taught him to believe. Dane was smiling at him so beautifully that Billy wished that they could stay like this, right in this moment, forever.

He smiled back at Dane and didn't bother saying anything.

He didn't feel himself blink until it was too late, but he held his eyes shut as long as he could, and held the world shut with them, wishing that there was a way to go back again.

\--

Billy was crouched next to Dane on a rooftop overlooking a courtyard littered with half-smoked cigarettes. He hadn't noticed those the first time, too focused on the rush of adrenaline and the weight of the phaser in his hand and the quiet way they both laughed at Dane's terrible joke.

For once, Billy didn't have to turn his head to look for Dane because he was already right there in front of him. He was smiling, head ducked slightly, like he'd wanted to hide his laughter and then thought better of it. He looked younger when he smiled, some of his rough edges falling away; Billy stared at him, wishing he'd had the time to enjoy it the first time around. Wishing they'd gotten to laugh together more.

Below them came the crunch of Saira's shoes against gravel as she stepped out for a smoke, signaling them to drop down and do what they'd come here to do. Billy ignored it because he could, because they'd already done those things once, and he didn't feel much like doing them again.

He tightened his grip on the phaser and leaned closer, ignoring the way the soles of his trainers slipped against the damp roof tiles. 

The smile fell off Dane's face, draining away like water through a sieve, replaced by something less easy to read. "You the one doing this?"

Billy frowned, shingles starting to give way beneath his feet. He could feel the toes of his shoes digging into them, leaving soft dents behind. Below them, water started to lap at the sides of the building. "Doing what?"

"Bringing me here. Away from--" He turned his head, looked down at the Londonmancers smoking endless cigarettes in the courtyard, not noticing the water slowly rising around them, and frowned. "--where I should be."

"No? I don't think so." The words turned into a question as Billy let go of the phaser to press his hand against the roof and keep his balance. There was a quiet splash as it hit the water below. "Where is it that you need to be, anyway? Not like work's expecting you."

Dane stared down at the courtyard, watching the water continue to rise, like a dark hand reaching out for them. "Down in the deep. With the gods and the rest of 'em. Where people like me are meant to be."

Billy shook saltwater from his fingertips and reached out, hand closing around Dane's arm; he held on tight, unsure which of them he was trying to keep there. "Is that what they taught you in Squid School?"

"Never heard anyone call it that before." There was a flash across Dane's face as he turned to look at him, something that wanted to be a smile and didn't quite manage it. 

"Missed opportunity, if you ask me." Billy pushed up his glasses with his free hand and tightened his grip on Dane, decided to count that almost-smile as a win. "You told me once that the Kraken took something like twenty thousand years to finish a mouthful of food. Do you really think it will miss you if you take a moment here with me?"

Dane looked like he wanted to agree. "...I shouldn't."

"Why not?" Billy dug his fingers into Dane's arm, clinging to him, and didn't care if he sounded petulant. The water crept slowly up the roof, soaking through the sides of his trainers.

"Because I want to. Be seein' you, Billy," Dane whispered and closed his eyes, leaving Billy alone on the wet rooftop, hand hovering above the empty place where Dane's arm had just been.

Billy stayed there, waiting, breathing in salt and rot and feeling the water covering his legs. When it reached his waist he lowered his hand slowly, dipping it into the cold, black water surrounding him, and closed his eyes.

\--

Billy was in an alleyway, a familiar grinding of glass against pavement filling up his head. It felt like a lifetime since he'd last seen Dane's face. Two lifetimes, in fact, both given up in the hopes of saving the world.

Billy turned to look at Dane beside him, towering over him, serious and protective and focused. He could tell by his expression that he hadn't realized where they were yet, that he was back with Billy and not out drifting through dark waters like a proper acolyte, paying penance that he hadn't earned and didn't deserve and that his god, in all its be-tentacled wisdom, probably didn't give a toss about.

The sound of footsteps echoed on the pavement behind them as the bounty hunters drew closer, and Billy grabbed Dane's wrist and started to run, tugging him along the alleyway, pulling him away from the sound of footsteps and glass and the crack of a whip that hadn't managed to find its mark this time. The buildings shifted around them, brick and concrete rippling with their movements as Billy ran and Dane followed, letting himself be lead.

He stopped when he could no longer hear the angel in his head and turned to look at Dane, still tall and strong and perfect beside him. Neither of them were the least bit flushed or winded, not like they would have been the first time, when they were alive enough for breathing to matter. 

Dane stared back at him, curious and trusting, and didn't pull his wrist out of Billy's grip. "What's this about?"

"They don't get to have you this time."

"Doesn't change what happened the first time. Or after."

"I don't care." Billy shrugged, letting go of Dane's wrist and pushed his hair out of his eyes a bit more aggressively than was needed. "I'm not letting them do that to you again."

Dane rubbed his wrist, looking almost embarrassed. "Thank you."

"Wish I'd managed it the first time," Billy said, not quite able to look him in the eye. "I'd say I'd stop bringing you to these places, but I really don't know how I'm doing it. Not sorry you're here, though."

"It's alright." Dane was quiet for a long moment, the corners of his mouth slowly curving upwards. "I'm not sure you'd stop if you knew how, though."

Billy laughed, the sound putting cracks in the pavement beneath their feet. Water flowed through them, blue-green and warm from the sun, and the smell of salt filled the air around them. "You're probably right."

"Yeah." Dane reached up, pushed Billy's glasses back up his nose for him, and shifted his feet against the tide rising around them. "I have to go."

"Already?" By the time Billy got the word out, Dane had already shut his eyes.

He lingered in the alleyway long after Dane was gone, listening to the sound of pissed off Chaos Nazis in the distance, the splashing of their boots as they waded their way closer growing more and more frustrated.

"Thanks for the continued assistance," he said to the water swirling around his knees, lifting his hand to give it a salute before he let his eyes drift shut again.

\--

Billy was in the back of the Londonmancer's lorry, standing a few feet away from a tank holding one large, pickled god. In front of it, Dane was on his knees, one hand on the tank. Billy remembered thinking the look on his face was the one he must have worn when he was dying, those first two times, the ones that Billy hadn't been there for.

It hadn't been the look he'd worn the final time, the one that Billy had been there to see. That time, at least, he hadn't looked broken. He'd looked strong, and determined and like himself, even with the changes being krakenbit had made to him.

Billy moved, knelt beside him on the damp, dirty floor, and stared into the tank. He didn't pretend to know what it was that Dane saw when he looked at it, if that bit of rubbery, stinking flesh changed when you believed. Maybe it was like knacking, and the belief was the bit you needed.

"I tried not to look, you know. Back when I was a guard."

Billy turned to look at him and reached up, carefully adjusting his glasses. He supposed he didn't need them anymore, now that he was something resembling dead, but he had a hard time imagining himself without them. "Why not?"

"Didn't think I'd earned it," Dane said, fingers flexing against the side of the tank. "I didn't always believe like I should."

"You believed enough to let yourself go all squiddy. I'd say that's earning it."

Dane turned to look at him finally. The liquid rocked against the side of the tank, swaying gently; from the corner of his eye, Billy thought he could see it curling round itself to form watery fingers. To push them apart, maybe. Or away. Or to pull them closer together.

"It's not there, you know. In the other place. Or at least I haven't seen it."

Billy thought about the nothingness when he closed his eyes, and the wet slither of something against his fingertips. "It's not?"

Dane shrugged, expression uncertain, like he wasn't sure whether or not he was meant to be disappointed. "They never said it would be, the Teuthex or my granddad or anyone that knew these things. I just always imagined it would be."

Billy reached over, slowly, resting his hand on one of Dane's knee and ignoring the way the liquid in the tank spilled up its sides, fingers waving, beckoning to them. "What's it like, then?"

"Dark. Cold. A bit lonely." Dane covered Billy's hand with his own. "Peaceful. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been."

Billy swallowed, knowing it wouldn't help ease the tightness in his throat, and squeezed Dane's knee. "You're happy there."

"I don't think I'm really much of anything when I'm there," Dane said, turning his head to stare into the tank again. "Except when I think of you. Then I feel like I'm everything all at once."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

The liquid in the tank bubbled up over the sides and poured down between them, a stinking mess of chemicals that sank through their clothing and clung to their skin.

"I could come with you," Billy suggested, turning his hand over to wind his fingers through Dane's. "Sounds really bloody boring down there, mind you, but I would. If you wanted."

Dane stared down at the froth around his knees and squeezed his hand around Billy's, laughing. "Best watch your mouth. It might be listening."

"Sorry," Billy said, laughing along with him. "I forgot I was in the presence of a god."

"Yeah." Dane gave Billy's hand one last squeeze. "Thanks," he said, and then he shut his eyes.

Billy stared at the thing in the tank, watching the liquid around it spill out until there was nothing but Dane's god lying inside, staring back at him.

"You could tell him it's okay to stay, you know. He'd listen to you," Billy said to it. When the answer he wasn't really expecting didn't come, he sighed and closed his eyes.

\--

Billy was in a crawlspace overlooking a clearing with Dane, watching a bunch of Jesus Buddhists and ferret worshippers get ready to fight for the honor of ushering in the end of the world. Dane was crouched behind him, ready to show him the way, same as he had been the first time.

Billy had half a mind to keep watching, see the apocalypse fighting with his own two eyes since he hadn't been allowed the first time. But the idea didn't hold quite as much appeal after having had a front row seat to a few other failed apocalypses, so he turned away from the fighting to face Dane instead.

"You aren't going to watch?" Dane was looking at him already, hunched over awkwardly in the narrow space.

"Think I've seen enough of the world ending," Billy said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "What do you think it's like for them when they die?"

Dane thought about it for a moment and wrinkled his nose. "Surrounded by racists and bad-smelling rodents? Pretty bloody awful, I'd imagine."

"Maybe they like it."

"There's no accounting for taste, mate."

"And if they don't like it," Billy said, letting the words spill out of him before he could think better of it. "Do you think they get to change their minds, find somewhere they like better?"

"No," Dane said, voice quiet. "I don't think that's what's allowed."

"I guess that's what they get, trailing after gods that terrible." Billy smiled at him and hoped it looked more optimistic than sad. "Guess it's lucky you've got better taste."

Dane smiled faintly. "Think so?"

Billy shrugged, reaching up to press damp fingers against Dane's cheek. He looked down, saw the water half-filling the tunnel around them, and wondered when that had happened.

Dane leaned slightly into the touch. "Gotta go now, Billy."

"Be seeing you, then," Billy said, glad that Dane waited until he got the words out to shut his eyes.

\--

Billy was sitting on one of the front pews in Dane's church, staring at their altar. The air smelled like blood and smoke around them; there were dark spots on the floor where the other cultists had fallen, the ones who hadn't made it long enough to play at being martyrs.

Dane was beside him, stiff-shouldered and full of sorrow, just as quiet as the first time around. 

Billy took a deep breath and broke the silence. He wished that he could have taken them to almost any moment that wasn't this one. "You don't have to this time, you know. We're already dead."

"I know."

"But you're going to anyway."

"Yeah."

Billy pulled his feet up onto the edge of the pew and drew his knees up to his chest, staring at the altar and that sharp bit of Kraken that they both knew was hidden inside. He was tempted to get up and smash it, or light it on fire, or do anything to stop it from being there. Even if it wouldn't make a difference, it would have made him feel better. But Dane probably wouldn't forgive him for that, even if it didn't really count, so he stayed where he was.

"It's not time yet. Not until morning," Billy pointed out, remembering the first time they'd spent this night together. He waited for the sea to rise up through the floor to swallow them both, drag them back to wherever it was they belonged, but it stayed dry and solid beneath his feet. Above the altar, the metal arms of the Kraken refused to move. The room was silent without the Teuthex there to talk to them about fate and destiny and big bloody sea creatures who probably didn't give a toss about what they did or didn't do.

Dane turned away from the altar and stepped down off the pulpit, taking a seat beside him.

They sat there in silence until Billy couldn't stand it anymore, and then he reached up, laying a hand on Dane's cheek to turn his face toward him. He smiled at him, not-quite embarrassed, and leaned up for a kiss. 

The kiss was longer than it should have been, and briefer than he would have liked, and by the end of it Dane was kissing him back, sweet and uncertain. His lips were warmer than they probably should have been, being most likely dead and all, and when Billy pulled back, he could feel them both smiling.

"Should have done that the first time, too."

"...yeah," Dane said, sounding a bit awestruck. He pressed his forehead against Billy's and reached up, cupping a hand around Billy's jaw, touch warm and dry and more alive than anything Billy could remember.

"You could have done it, too, you know."

"You think I wanted to?"

Billy laughed and kissed him again, more certain this time, and then pulled away. "Guess we can't stay here, can we?"

"Would you want to?"

Billy thought about it. "Probably not here, no. But I still would, if you wanted."

Dane rubbed his thumb against Billy's jaw and didn't say any of the things either of them were thinking.

Billy leaned into the touch and breathed in the faint scent of the ocean around them. "Don't close your eyes just yet."

He waited until Dane nodded in agreement to pull away, resting his head against Dane's shoulder and staring at anything that wasn't the altar and the thing waiting inside of it.

Dane laid an arm across his shoulders and stared with him.

It was a long time before either of them shut their eyes.

\--

Billy was on a balcony overlooking a factory full of squid-knacked bits of paper and gun farmers and the krankenbit remnants of the Teuthists. They were all down there, save one who was crouched beside him.

Billy stared at Dane's profile, the inky black of his eyes, and ignored the chaos below them. He could hear a rush of water pouring through the doors of the factory, battering the remaining machinery and sweeping squid and gun worshippers alike off their feet. They shouted, fighting through it, seeking their ideas of glory. 

Beside him, Dane was frozen in position, poised to jump down and join them in the waves. "Didn't think we'd end up back here," he said, voice low and rough, like the low roiling of the sea.

"Yeah. Could have picked a better spot. This one's got no atmosphere." 

Dane smiled at that. The eyes made it look odd, but no less real. "Pretty sure this place's got nothin' but atmosphere."

"Not the kind I'm into." Billy moved closer and laid his hand on Dane's arm, like it would be enough to keep him there. "Don't go."

"Little late for that," Dane said, leaning into him. "I already did."

"Guess so." Billy looked away for a moment, staring down at the sea rising beneath them, littered with scraps of paper and guns and squid-like people, all dancing around in the muck. "So don't do it again. Stay with me."

"Here?" 

"Anywhere."

"I don't really know how any of this works," Dane admitted, looking more uncertain than Billy had ever seen him. 

"And you think I do?" Billy turned his head to look at the water, now a few inches below the bottom of the balcony, and smiled. "That hasn't stopped either of us before. We'll figure it out."

"And if we don't?"

"We'll just keep trying. It's not like we have anywhere we need to be."

"Yeah." Dane nodded, the blackness in his eyes spreading. "Yeah...why not. Let's have a go at it."

Billy rolled his eyes and reached out to take his hand. "And with that ringing endorsement--" He linked their fingers together, nodding his head at the water lapping at the toes of their shoes. "--fancy going for a swim?"

"Not really," Dane said, smiling in that way that Billy couldn't get enough of. "Do you?"

"No," Billy said, and they leaned their heads together, laughing. 

Just before they jumped, Dane leaned in to kiss him, short and sweet. Billy could still feel the warmth of Dane's lips as he sank below the water, down into the Nothing, Dane's hand tight around his.

\--

Billy was standing in the doorway of his flat, dripping seawater onto the weathered wooden floor. It looked just the way it always had, down to the dirty dishes left in his sink and the broken umbrella that he'd never gotten around to throwing out propped beside his door.

And across the room, dripping water onto his battered sofa, was Dane.

"Oh," he said, for lack of a better reaction.

"Fancy meeting you here," Dane said, expression far-too-serious. 

Billy narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you stealing my line?"

Dane's expression didn't change. "It would have to be a good one for me to bother doing that."

Billy wasn't sure which of them started laughing first, but it lasted until they were both doubled over. He wiped at his eyes, unsure why he was bothering, soaked with seawater as he was. He crossed the room to sit down next to Dane, not caring about the wet trail he left behind him to ruin the floorboards; he settled onto a soggy cushion and pulled Dane into him, kissing the laughter off his lips and not minding the briny taste in the slightest.

When they pulled apart, he was still wet and his flat was still shit and he had no idea where things were going to go from here, but Dane was on the sofa next to him. They'd made it here together. 

"Fancy going for a drink?" Billy asked, giving Dane a knowing look over the top of his glasses.

"Thought you'd never ask," Dane said and stood, offering him a hand up.

Billy thought, maybe, that things would be okay after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The character death in canon still happens, but they do get a happily ever after in the end!


End file.
